my microcosm

Blogifesto

We're getting down to the wire with the Pedal Zombies Kickstarter project!
One hundred and twenty six worthy souls have backed the project, bringing us to just over half our funding goal. We've got less than six days left to make this happen. So we've added a bunch of new reward levels, featuring custom fun stuff ranging from a letter about the future for your kid to read when they grow up to a custom voicemail greeting from the voice of Zordon of Eltar.
Or you can just get the book, which is a pretty sweet deal in its own right!
Onward to the most popular custom reward last time around: the feminist analysis of sci fi classics recommended by backers.
"The Lifecycle of Software Objects" by Ted Chiang
This analysis is at the request of Mason in California (who, based on his avatar, is an actual zombie!). It's a longish story, and you can read the entire thing on the publisher's website. This one was good thinking. The first word of the story is "Her"—referring to a woman named Ana, who plays online warcraft-esque games, is applying for jobs as a software developer, and who goes on throughout the story to navigate a world full of white collar professionals that seems to have gently broken free from any kind of marked expectations or reactions stemming from gender or race.

We're making a beautiful new edition of The Culinary Cyclist: A Cookbook and Companion for the Good Life that officially comes out September 15. It'll have a new cover, some light edits, and—most exciting—recipe conversions for Europe.
In the meantime, we still have a few dozen copies of the original edition left in stock and are offering them at $6 (that's 40% off!) until we run out or the new one arrives from the printer. Even better wholesale discounts apply. Get 'em before they're gone!

Announcing.... a call for submissions for the fourth annual Bikes in Space anthology.
Our 2016 theme is: Utopia / Dystopia
Bicycle transportation is often seen as a means towards a utopian project. The joy of cycling, the environmental and health benefits, and so on, are spoken of almost evangelically, and many riders and advocates have lain awake imagining a world where the bicycle reigns supreme, or at least roams free. Some of the political backlash against cycling is a reaction to this dream of a bicycling future; a dystopian fantasy of a society where cars are outlawed and the freedoms they represent to many are curtailed. Yet others love bicycling but question dominant visions that often seems exclusionary and class-divided.

Slowly, but surely, the Pedal Zombies Kickstarter campaign is wending its way to its goal. We got a nice boost yesterday when Cory Doctorow blogged about us on Boing Boing (praising our production values, no less—we swooned). We also found out that some less-enthused Redditors discovered us, but were disappointed that they only assigned the project 4 Oppression Points. Can't win 'em all.
As promised, here's another batch of feminist science fiction analyses; both were requested by Bikes in Space 2 backer (and two-time contributor) Emily June Street (keep an eye out for her reproductive apocalypse story "Breeders" in Pedal Zombies):

The premiere episode of Microcosm Publishing’s brand new podcast, featuring Johnny “Jughead” Pierson of Screeching Weasel and the Neofuturists about growing up as a musician, an author, and an actor in a chaotic household and how it directed his adult life when these hobbies turned professional.

We are excited to let you know about our newest Kickstarter project: This one is for Pedal Zombies: 13 Feminist Science Fiction Stories, published under our Elly Blue Publishing imprint. The project is being managed for us by the Zombie-Living Alliance, which aims to promote peace, understanding, and an end to violence between the undead and the few remaining living. We hope that Pedal Zombies will prove to be a small part of that reconciliation. (John Kerry has yet to comment on his availability as a mediator.)

Well, I go from town to town, usually on public transportation or rideshare... I don't really bring any gear, not even my knives lately. I cook often in apartments or homes for dinner parties, sometimes in random facilities for multimedia or art events and presentations, sometimes popups in restaurants, and occasionally a wedding thrown in there. It's pretty ramshackle... the good things are I get to hang out and party with the hosts, I don't have a boss and the trips usually cover themselves as I go along. I'll spend a few days to a few weeks in each town then move on to the next. In a way it's sort of a medieval model crossed with a punk rock touring concept.

It’s not enough to create a good book. Now you’re competing with all of these other forms of entertainment, because for most people, reading is such a commitment (wait! There’s a movie?) that the challenge for publishers is to overcome information overload. Readers think they already know what they want to read until they find the one book on the one subject they haven’t yet discovered. It’s like being the first on your block. It’s what makes you want to share. We’ve become such expert browsers that we may have forgotten that at the heart of all of this is a community, and for a publisher like Microcosm, books are the community that informs and inspires. All of the rest—the social networking, the online gamers, and niche markets is gossip that involves books, so it may as well be Microcosm’s books. There’s so much potential emerging in the industry and that bodes very well for readers and writers alike.

This is the seventh post in our ongoing Business of Publishing series. This edition tackles one of our most popular questions: "What is the best way to organize a book tour on my own?"
Many authors get stars in their eyes and don't understand that with 4,000 new books being published each day, they will not sell thousands of books as a result of a tour, if ever. But when I ran into this article, I was given new pause. And some alarm.

Here's what we took in during the last month!
Taylor
Read: Dave Egger's What is the What and White Girls by Hilton Als
Listened 2: Lizzie Mercier Descloux, Team Dresch, Gap Dream and a podcast called Expanding Mind on different states of dreaming
Tried to watch Black Fish but internet connection was too poor, still recommend everyone check out.